


you don't agree, but you don't refuse

by MiniNephthys



Category: 1bitHeart (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Rape Aftermath, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-01
Updated: 2015-09-01
Packaged: 2018-04-18 13:44:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4708103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiniNephthys/pseuds/MiniNephthys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nanashi will let anyone do anything to him if it doesn't kill him outright.  Severely messing him up is allowed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you don't agree, but you don't refuse

Seeing Nanashi come back home bruised is not entirely unusual. He’s never been the strongest, and sometimes his efforts to make friends involve them wanting him to do favors for them like practice dodging punches, or other ways he could get injured.

That said, Misane always asks him about where he got his injuries. It’s her natural concern for him, even if he doesn’t always appreciate it.

“Nanashi, how did you bruise your wrists?”

Nanashi freezes. It’s not a reaction he’s had to her asking about his bruises before: usually, he just laughs and tells her a story about houses full of creepy dolls or however the injuries came about, always with a cheerful smile on his face.

This time, he’s completely still a moment before he puts on a smile more fake than usual. “Do I have bruises? I didn’t notice them! They could’ve come from anywhere, really.”

Misane frowns. “Nanashi. Please don’t lie to me.” Given their history, she realizes she has little right to ask that of him, but she’s worried.

“...Saya must have held my hands a little tightly,” he says, after another moment. He’s not looking at Misane. “I told her I wasn’t going anywhere, but you know, she’s that type of girl, I guess…”

Misane’s frown deepens, and she crosses the room to Nanashi. When she reaches for his hand to inspect the bruises more carefully, he flinches away from her.

“Nanashi,” she repeats, backing away until the point where he relaxes some. “Please tell me what happened in more detail.”

“I don’t really want to, Misane-chan… But you’ll probably get future me to find out if I don’t tell you...” says Nanashi, slowly.

Actually, reading his mind hadn’t occurred to Misane as a solution. As efficient as it might be, it’s always felt too invasive for her. “Can you at least tell me who ‘Saya’ is?”

“Saaya Yukisuzu. She’s a girl, same age as me, and she likes me a lot. A whole lot.” Nanashi rubs his wrists. “And… you know, if someone wants to do something with me, as long as it doesn’t kill me outright, I don’t have any reason to say no…”

Nanashi is currently fourteen. Misane is starting to feel sick, and asking future Nanashi to find out and not have to have this conversation herself seems more appealing by the word. Still she presses on. “Did she do something sexual to you?”

Nanashi just nods.

Misane swallows around the lump in her throat. “I’m going to tell the police. And then… I don’t know what we’ll do. I’m so sorry.”

In a second, Nanashi’s plastic smile is back. “It’s okay, Misane-chan! I don’t mind, really! I mean, if it hadn’t happened to me I’m sure she would have found somebody else, and… and so, it’s fine!”

“It’s not fine.” Misane wants to grab his shoulders and shake him, but she can’t bear to see him flinching away from her again. “You don’t deserve this.”

Nanashi’s forced smile doesn’t disappear even while she’s sending the police her report, and for the moment Misane is the one feeling useless.

* * *

Nanashi’s effort to make friends is put on hold. He asked Misane the next morning if he should go out and talk to people, because he really wasn’t feeling well, and Misane told him that he could stay inside for as long as he needed to.

Misane talks to ‘Mikado’ instead. Saaya and Nanashi’s BitPhones had provided the necessary data to collaborate with Misane’s report, and the girl had been arrested. Since she was a minor herself, she would be spared from too harsh of a punishment, but at least there would be something done about what had happened.

The first of Nanashi’s friends to visit is Miumi with Natsukage following shortly behind her. “We haven’t seen Nanashi-san for days!” she exclaims, when Misane lets the pair inside. “We were worried!”

“She was worried,” Natsukage says. “I just came so she wouldn’t get lost on the way.”

“You were super worried over your tomodachi!” says Miumi. “Don’t deny it!”

While the two keep talking, Misane sticks her head into Nanashi’s room, where he’s buried under a pile of blankets. “Natsukage and Miumi are here to see you,” she says. “Do you want to see them, or should I turn them away?”

There’s a silence, then a muffled, “I should probably talk to them…”

“Nobody is going to get mad at you for not talking to them right now,” Misane says.

Miumi sticks her head into the doorway after Misane. “Are you sick, Nanashi-san? Do you need me to bring you some kusuri?”

Nanashi pokes his head out from under the blanket pile. “You can tell them if you want. You hate liars, Misane-chan.”

“This is completely different,” says Misane. “Miumi, if you could please back up a little.” Miumi does, and Misane closes the door.

“So what’s going on?” asks Natsukage. “If he was sick, you’d just say so.”

Misane folds her arms. She had been given express permission to tell them, and they are Nanashi’s closest friends outside of herself, but even so, she has to tell them delicately. “...No, Nanashi is not sick.”

“Is he hurt?” asks Miumi. “Did he get beat up really badly and he needs bed rest?”

“He’s not physically hurt, much,” Misane says. “It’s… you know how Nanashi will do almost literally anything someone tells him to do?”

The pair nod.

“Even if he doesn’t want to do it himself, he’ll do it anyway to please somebody else.”

Again, nods.

“...A girl wanted to have sex with him, and so...”

Miumi gasps. Natsukage goes slightly pale.

“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell everyone about this,” says Misane, shutting her eyes. “Nanashi’s having a difficult time, and on top of that he’s having trouble admitting anything is wrong.”

“But that’s terrible!” says Miumi. “Nobody deserves that kind of thing! If I ever see her, I’ll-”

“We won’t blab about it,” says Natsukage, firmly. “Is there anything we can do?”

“I’ll let you know when he’s feeling up to talking to people again,” Misane replies. “Other than that, there’s nothing that can be done besides give him some time.”

After the two leave, it’s just Mikado on his computer, Nanashi in his silent bedroom, and Misane again.

* * *

“Flower delivery,” says Haruya, holding out an enormous bouquet.

“Thank you,” says Misane, accepting it. “But why is Akitaka accompanying you on your delivery?”

“Miumi asked for it special,” says Akitaka. “Said she really didn’t want Haruya gettin’ lost on the way.”

“Can I ask what the flowers are for?” asks Haruya. “She just said they were for Nanashi and wouldn’t say what occasion.”

Miumi can keep her word when it’s important, at least. Misane says, “They’re a get-well gift. Nanashi’s been feeling low lately, and she’s been worried.”

“Is he contagious? Can we see him?” Haruya asks, and then: “Oh, Nanashi!”

“Hi,” says Nanashi, behind Misane. “Who are the flowers for? Don’t tell me you’ve got an admirer, Misane-chan?”

“They’re for you,” Misane replies, holding them out to him. Nanashi accepts the bouquet, careful not to touch her in the process of taking them. “Miumi was worried.”

“You don’t look too sick,” says Akitaka, confused.

“I’m not sick!” says Nanashi with a wide smile. “That’d be bad. I was just feeling antisocial for a while, that’s all. Nothing to worry about!”

“Then how come Misane looks like she’s gonna cry?” Akitaka asks.

Hearing that, Misane wipes at her eyes. They’re a little wet.

“Misane-” Haruya starts.

“I’m fine,” she says. “It’s not me who needs to be worried about right now.”

“There’s nothing wrong with me,” says Nanashi, but this time he’s more shaken up, and his voice quivers. “Really... nothing wrong…”

Haruya looks between Misane and Nanashi, and goes to hug Nanashi. Nanashi flinches away from him, and Haruya stops. “What happened to you?”

“You’re a little young,” says Misane. She’s only a year older than him, but the difference between thirteen and fourteen feels immense, and anyway she wishes she didn’t know either. “But someone hurt Nanashi badly.”

“Am I too young too?” asks Akitaka.

“...No, I just don’t want to say it with Haruya here.” Especially in terms blunt enough for Akitaka to understand.

Akitaka nods. “Okay. I hope you heal up quick, man.”

“...Thanks,” says Nanashi. It’s the first time Misane’s heard him acknowledge he was hurt at all.

* * *

Saaya is no older than Nanashi, and he did technically agree to whatever she did to him. Thus she would be given no criminal charges.

When Mikado tells Misane that, she stares at him in horror for a few seconds, then excuses herself from the apartment.

She walks. She doesn’t know where she’s walking. She just needs to get out of this apartment, this situation, this mess where nobody will acknowledge how badly Nanashi was harmed, least of all Nanashi himself.

She’s not sure how she ends up in Break Passage. It seems the least safe place to be with her thoughts elsewhere, but somehow she’s been left alone so far.

Ryuuri is awake when she passes by him. “Misane!”

She turns to him slowly.

“You guys get out of here for a while,” he says to his gang members, and with minimal grumbling they disperse. To Misane he asks, “How’s Nanashi doing?”

“...Badly.” That’s all she can manage to say.

“Yeah, that’s what I figured.” He folds his arms. “And the person who did it-”

“She won’t be given any charges.” Misane sounds to herself like someone else is talking. “They’re the same age and Nanashi will agree to anything out loud even if it leaves him a wreck for weeks afterward.”

“Shit, really?” Ryuuri growls, low in his throat. “If I ever find out who it was-”

“Nanashi would probably tell you it wasn’t worth fighting somebody over someone as worthless as him,” says Misane. “...At this moment, I would probably cheer you on.”

Ryuuri pats the ground next to him, and Misane sits down. For a few seconds, they sit in silence.

“...He’s starting to at least admit that something bad happened,” she says, slowly. She’s not sure how Ryuuri found out, but having someone older who knows has opened the floodgates. “For a while he wouldn’t even treat it like a problem when he talked about it. Like it was better that it happened to him instead of somebody else. Now he still won’t let anyone else be concerned about him, and I just… I don’t know what to do!”

“There’s not a lot you can do,” says Ryuuri. “You’ve been doing your best already, and it takes time. Even for people who don’t already have as many problems as Nanashi, it screws them up real bad.”

Misane sniffles, and tries to wipe away the tears that are starting to flow.

“Go ahead and cry. You’re both way too young to be dealing with this sort of shit, you need to get a good cry in.” Ryuuri gently pats her shoulder, and Misane finally breaks into loud sobbing.

By the time she heads back to the apartment, she’s feeling a little better. None of the problems are gone. The world hasn’t suddenly acknowledged that Nanashi has been dealt too poor a hand in life and decided to treat him more fairly; Nanashi hasn’t acknowledged it either. But she at least can face Nanashi when he opens the door for her and beams like nothing is wrong.

“Nanashi,” she says as she steps inside. “Will you be alright?”

Nanashi pauses, and seems to consider the question seriously. “I think so! Because you’re here, Misane-chan. Otherwise I’d be way worse.”

Misane can’t imagine what ‘way worse’ would even look like. “I’ll be here for you as long as you need me. Because I really do… care about you, Nanashi. Your friends all want to see you really smile again.”

“I am smiling!”

“No, you’re not,” says Misane, and hopes that someday, he will.


End file.
